Doug

At the New England Horse Show in 1956. At the bottom left is my mother, Berenese. Center bottom is Richard Strawbridge. Bottom right is “Big” Cille Kennedy. Behind her is my father, Frank. Next to Frank is Dorothy Strawbridge, and next to her Is Douglass Kennedy.

When I was about 7 years old, the Kennedy’s moved in next door. Their family consisted of three girls. “Little Cille” was one grade ahead of me in school and was called “Little Cille” because she was named after her mother, Lucille, who was universally called “Big Cille”. Triska, whose real name was Patricia, was a year or so younger than me. Caroline, who was nicknamed Kebbie was the baby in the family. It is interesting that, after all these years, the sisters still retain their nicknames amongst their families and friends. Well, perhaps not Cille, because her mother passed away, and it is no longer necessary to call her “Little” Cille. As I mentioned, their mother was Lucille, or Big Cille, and their father, the subject of this little writing, was Douglass.

Little Cille, Kebbie, and Triska Kennedy

Now, the three sisters and I were very close friends when we were young. My first date was taking Little Cille to the Easter Drag, which only Holyoker’s will understand as a general ambling about with family, friends and sweethearts along Northampton Street between Nick’s Nest and the Yankee Peddler on Easter afternoon. Little Cille and I had many more dates before we entered puberty and started taking dating more seriously. Kebbie was more my sister’s age. As the fates would have it, I fell madly in love with Triska, the proverbial “middle child” during my graduate school days, but it was not to be – she only saw me as the chubby kid next door and never returned my romantic feelings. Rather typically, Triska called me to the phone one day and said “Bobby, I have asked every boy I know to go to the Cotillion Ball with me, but they all have other dates, so will you take me?” That about sums up my “romance” with Triska.

Here I am dressed up and on a “date” with Little Cille

When the Kennedy’s first moved in, my father and Doug became close friends. One day, Doug talked my father into going in halves with him on the purchase of an old, wooden cabin cruiser boat, which they agreed to fix up. The boat was hauled to the edge of the Kennedy’s property, where it stayed, slowly rotting away for years. We kids had a ball playing on the old boat, but it never saw a single nickel of repairs. I think the whole thing was the product of a few too many drinks one night. Every Christmas Eve, Doug and Big Cille would come by our house after we kids were sent to bed to wait for Santa Clause, and my parents and Doug and Big Cille would exchange presents. I remember one year Doug gave my folks a bottle of Goldwasser, a German liquor with real gold leaf floating in it. He also thoughtfully gave them a small sieve to be kept in the bathroom to retrieve the gold leaf in an interesting twist to “panning”. Waste not want not, I suppose. One Christmas, Doug somehow managed to punch reindeer footprints into their seldom used front porch floor and a spot on the wall where Rudolf’s red nose had singed the shingles. These “artifacts” kept the Kennedy girls believing in Santa Clause well into their 20’s.

My father went on a business trip to Chicago one time. About 3 hours or so after his plane left Bradley field, the TV news announced a plane had crashed coming into O’Hare airport. My mother became near hysterical and tearfully called the Kennedy’s. Doug suggested that he and my mother should go immediately to Bradley Air Field to await news about the plane that had crashed. Doug kept telling my poor mother not to worry, that hundreds of planes fly into Chicago all the time, but my mother continued to be a nervous wreck. Doug steered her into the coffee shop to await news. My mother got more and more distraught, convinced that my father had been on the plane that went down. Suddenly, Doug slammed his hand down on the table with a thunderous THWACK. Everyone in the coffee shop stopped and looked up. Doug slowly turned up has hand and peered under it. “Don’t worry folks,” Doug announced in a loud voice. “It’s not a cockroach; it’s just a silver fish” he shouted. My mother started to laugh, and the whole episode calmed her down. Shortly came news that the plane that crashed had not come from Bradley after all. My mother always loved Doug for that night, and specifically that gesture. She told that story often, whenever the subject of the Kennedy’s came up.

In the late 1950’s, Doug ran successfully for School Committeeman for Ward 7 and served two terms. Doug became convinced that the schools were merely passing on students who had not mastered the academic skills for their given class levels because it was easier than keeping them back to get those skills. The result was hundreds of “graduates” from high school who could hardly read and write and had no math or science skills at all. He convinced the other School Committeeman to insist on competency testing at the end of each school year for each class that would positively determine whether students should pass or not. In this, Doug was generations ahead of his time, as competency testing has become the national norm today. But in 1959, it was absolutely radical – and, as it turned out, totally unworkable. At the end of the first year of testing, a huge number of students would have to be held back to gain the skills they lacked. It was like trying to stop a train. Parents and teachers all became outraged, and the School Committee was forced to back down and give up on the idea of competency testing. I have always thought it was too bad they didn’t have the guts to stick with it. While it certainly caused difficulties, I think it could have made a tremendous difference in hundreds of lives. Instead, hundreds of kids simply moved mindlessly through the system, coming out as “graduates” with absolutely no educational skills at all.

Doug himself had attended Harvard University, majoring in English Literature. Somehow, in his last year, he was asked to leave Harvard and never graduated. His father, Patrick J. Kennedy, universally called “PJ” was outraged. He demanded that Doug take a job in PJ’s business, PJ Kennedy Construction Co. For years, Doug soldiered on, as he studied civil and mechanical engineering on his own. Doug would eventually sit for the Massachusetts’s Engineer’s License exam, which he passed with flying colors, becoming one of the only licensed engineers in Massachusetts history who didn’t have an engineering bachelor of science degree. Quite the accomplishment for a guy who’s love was English literature.

During his hay day, PJ was one of Holyoke’s premier builders. Many of the industrial buildings in Holyoke were built by PJ Construction. Doug told me that when PJ graduated from M.I.T., the Country was experiencing a recession. There was almost no work for engineers, so PJ took a job as a “Sand Hog” on the Holland Tunnel in NYC. By the time the tunnel was finished, PJ was the head engineer on the project, and thereby made both his reputation and wealth enough to start his own construction company in Holyoke. When I knew PJ, he was an elegant but very old man, always formally dressed. PJ’s home is now the Delaney House in Smith’s Ferry.

According to Doug, PJ’s forte was in the use of explosives, learned on the Holland Tunnel project. In fact, PJ became an explosives artist. For example, one company in Holyoke had a 6 story building, but wanted a 5 story building. So PJ “detached the upper floor from the roof and the 5th floor, and he detonated explosives which pulverized the entire 6th floor. He then lowered the roof back on top of the 5th floor, and voila – a 5 story building! Hard to believe, really, but Doug insisted it was true.

As PJ become old and retired, Doug took over the company, but for years and years, PJ would head off to the office every day. Over the years, the company became more and more, well “decrepit” I suppose would be the word, just like old PJ himself. PJ simply refused any attempt to re-invest in the company and modernize it. All these years, the old man simply drained the company revenues into his own pocket and kept Doug working for slave wages. But Doug soldiered on and on. An English major trapped in the wrong job. I got to see this company up close and personal because Doug hired me as his assistant for the nine months between my graduating college and my entering graduate school in 1967 – 1968. Prior to that time, Doug was, for me, the parent of my friends, the Kennedy sisters, and one of my parent’s best friends. During my employment with PJ Construction, Doug became one of MY best friends!

When I spent my time at PJ Construction, the company was in dire straits. It consisted of a crew of true characters and equipment that could hardly be believed. For example, the crane we used was built in 1918 and had a wooden boom. One of the crew was named Johnny Augustine. Johnny was our jack hammer guy. Years of planting the handles of a jack hammer under his stomach had had a deleterious effect on Johnny’s bowels. Johnny would be hammering away at some pavement when he would suddenly drop his jack hammer and dash off to a bathroom, often with only moments to spare. There was a story about Johnny that one day he paddled a boat to the pier of a local bar (he lived on the Connecticut River). After a few beers, Johnny suddenly ran to the bathroom, only to find the door locked. Desperate, Johnny scampered to the pier and jumped into his boat, sending his feet clear through the bottom of the boat. As he slowly sank into the River, he quietly soiled himself. But the River took care of everything, I suppose.

There were other characters. In fact, they were all characters as I recall. The foreman was a French Canadian named Emile. As well as being foreman, Emile ran the crane. Once, Emile was using the crane to get a new pulp beater into the Parson’s Paper Co. and the beater flipped around in mid air and came crashing to the ground. For a moment, there was a hail of French cursing. Then Emile quickly looked about, saw that nobody from Parson’s was looking, and quickly went about re-attaching the beater to the crane boom. Just like nothing had happened, indeed. The chief carpenter and all about construction genius was a guy named Jackie Roberts. Jackie was also a Holyoke Fireman until he injured his back trying to rescue some poor soul from a burning building. From then on, Jackie worked full time for PJ Construction, but he had to be discrete about it, as he was out of the Fire Department on full physical disability. There was very little in the way of construction that Jackie couldn’t do. There was a day laborer named Richard Cote. He hated me at first, seeing me as a rich college guy taking the job of one of “his kind”. But we wound up being good friends. I went to Richard’s wedding which was called a “joint” party. This meant that all the invited guests had to purchase a ticket to cover the expenses because the bride’s parents couldn’t afford to spring for the affair. A ticket got you a kielbasa feast and a band for dancing. Drinks were available at a cash bar. I apparently brought too much cash because I had way too much to drink. For months after words, complete strangers would come up to me on the streets of Holyoke and start talking about what a great time we all had. I suppose we did at that, but I didn’t remember much, truth be told. One of Doug’s top carpenters was a guy named Danny Krug. Danny lived in West Hampton and had about a 1 hour commute to work into Holyoke. Danny and I became great friends for many years. When PJ Construction eventually went under, Danny “retired” to his maple sugar business. For years and years, I always bought my maple syrup from Danny and his wife. I wound up seeing Danny as a kind of cracker barrel philosopher. Whenever I went out to his house to pick up some maple syrup, he would generally start talking about his journeys (he and his wife Bess took many trips about the Country) and his observations in general. I was constantly amazed at his perceptions about life and all. Danny actually became one of the driving forces in the creation of the Massachusetts Maple Syrup Association.

And there was Lester Lavallie. I actually urged Doug to hire Lester, as my father’s company, Hampden Papers had fired him for being generally too, ah -- well too stupid to work in industry. When Lester was discharged, his wife came down to Hampden and pleaded with my Uncle, to no avail. I felt bad for Lester and his family and convinced Doug to give him a chance. I can remember that on his first day with PJ Construction, I drove Lester to a location and told him to dig a hole. When I came back 4 hours later, I had to get a ladder to get him out of the hole he dug. The perfect day laborer in Construction! Once, Lester invited me up to his 4th floor apartment in the “flats” of Holyoke to meet his family. As he opened the door, there was a sudden whack as a fist hit him square on the jaw which sent him reeling backwards down the stairs. Lester’s wife, a very short and fat women came out on the landing, saw me standing there with my mouth opened, and quietly invited me in for a beer. Lester soon came in, a large bruise on his jaw, and joined us for a beer. Nothing was said about the punch. You think I am making this up, but it’s all true. After PJ Construction failed, Lester got a job working for O’Connell and Sons in Holyoke. They made the incredulous move of making him a bulldozer operator. Lester was not bulldozer operator material, and on his first day, he managed to roll his bulldozer over himself. He actually survived that and wound up on permanent disability. I bumped into him shortly after his bulldozer accident. His jaw was wired shut, and he could only murmur. Nevertheless, we went off to a bar together, and Lester managed to drink by turning his head sidewise and “spilling” the beer onto his slightly opened lips. A more determined beer drinker I never encountered! One day, I was walking down a Holyoke street and happened to look up an ally. There was Lester and a prostitute standing together; both were completely dressed, but she had her dress pulled up, and they were in some degree of coitus. Well, a more determined fornicator I never encountered either. What a romantic!

But I digress. On my first day at PJ Construction, Doug was waiting for me. He told me that he and Big Cille were off for a well earned vacation, and I should hold down the shop. Yikes! This was my first day! As they were leaving, Doug turned and “mentioned” that it was just possible that someone from the IRS just might be dropping by. Doug took me out to the shop and pointed out a pile of cardboard boxes. “If the IRS guy shows up, show him these boxes and tell him the corporate records for the last several years are in them”. Well, on Monday morning, a guy from the IRS did indeed show up. So I took him out to the un-air-conditioned shop and pointed out the boxes. He was there all day Monday and all day Tuesday. That afternoon, Doug called asking me how things were going. I told him of the IRS guy working out in the shop. Doug told me he would call again. On Wednesday, I began to feel sorry for the IRS guy because it was un-godly hot out in the shop, so I told him he could bring in some of the boxes and work in the air-conditioned office. That afternoon, Doug called and seemed peeved that I had let the guy into the comfort of the office. Finally, on Friday, the IRS guy approached me, told me the records were hopeless. He went on to explain that he had to report one way or another on the Company. He said that if his report was incomplete, he would have to come back the following week. So, he said, “You and I are going to construct a construction business”. And that’s just what we did. We made up numbers for sales, costs, payroll, deductions, and such, making it out that the company didn’t owe any taxes. By Friday afternoon, our “fiction” was complete, and he left the completely fabricated tax return for Doug’s signature. On the following Monday, I explained to Doug what we had done. Doug found it extremely amusing, signed the returns, and invited me out to a bar as a reward for “conspicuous service” to the company. Shortly after that, I was promoted to “Office Manager”. Another cause for a celebration. In fact, just about every closing time, we had some reason to celebrate at a bar on the way home. In each “celebration”, Doug and I shared the most intimate secrets of our lives. I slowly began to see him more like a brother than a friend of my father and the father of my friends.

One great cause for celebration had to do with one of Doug’s brothers-in-law. Big Cille’s sister had married a guy named Dick Lidecker who was a top executive in an insurance company in New Jersey. On a trip up to Holyoke, Dick rather casually mentioned that he was looking to buy a printing company. His insurance company had come to realize that they were spending a fortune on printed forms and had decided to acquire a printing company capable of printing these forms for them. Dick told Doug that there would be something like a 2% finder’s fee for anyone who could locate a suitable company. Doug told me about this, so on a whim, I inquired with a guy named Dick Adams, the Vice President of sales for my father’s company if he knew of such a company. Dick indicated that his brother in law, I guy named Harold Moynahan actually worked for such a company. So I told Doug about Harold’s company and the possibility of a deal. And finally, a deal did indeed go down. 2% of the deal was a lot of money. Dick Adams got a few thousand dollars which came in handy. Harold Moynahan made something like $15,000, which was virtually a full years pay. This convinced Harold that it would be more profitable to find and sell companies than to look for another job (as his company was sold, he was promptly put out of a job). This was Harold’s undoing. He spent years looking to make another deal, while spending his ample spare time drinking. He died many years later having never stitched together another deal. He died of severe alcoholism. Doug made a pile of money, which allowed him to pay off all kinds of debts. I was at first promised “my share”, but as the three guys divided up the proceeds, it was decided that I didn’t need any, as I was still a student and had my whole life ahead of me to make money. But Doug did celebrate with me, in the usual way, I suppose. As a supreme irony, I would up buying Harold’s house, and my wife and I live there to this day.

One of my chief jobs as Office Manager was picking up old PJ at his home in Smith’s Ferry and driving him to the office which was on Pine Street in Holyoke. We would always stop at Lucines’ on Hampden Street for PJ’s copy of the Transcript Telegram. Once at the office, PJ would go immediately into his office, prop up the newspaper, and go quietly to sleep behind it. Sometime in the afternoon, PJ’s wife (universally called MeMa) would call with a shopping list. And PJ and I would dutifully drop by a market and fulfill her list. But first, we had to stop at a “location” where our crew was working. The old guy would inevitably get out of the car, look about for some detail like a tool lying about. He would then signal to some worker and say “Pick up that tool and put it away; otherwise, it will get lost”. The PJ crew was well accustomed to these visits from PJ. But there were times when we had no work and the crew was laid off. On those days, I would drive him about Holyoke searching for the DPW. Once I found a DPW crew at work, I would stop. Out of my car would pop PJ who would, as usual, scan about for some detail. He would then walk up to some completely startled DPW worker and say “Pick up that tool and put it away; otherwise, it will get lost.” I used to love the looks we would get!

One day, MeMa took a fall, and it was decided that she had to enter a nursing home. Of course, PJ joined her there as he had never lived apart from her since he was a young man. Moving them into a nursing home was a trip. MeMa was combative during the entire move, constantly insisting that there was no need for her to move from her home. PJ was just confused and kept murmuring to himself. A long day for all. Towards the late afternoon, both Doug and I were anxious to get away and hit a bar for a well deserved drink or two or three. But as we were leaving, a list of necessities left at home appeared. So we hastily drove to PJ’s home. Once there, we split up the responsibilities and objects on the list. On my list was finding PJ’s favorite slippers. In his bedroom closet, I encountered a neat row of endless shoe boxes. Opened one box. Brown tie-ups. Another, Black tie-ups. Another, stock certificates! Stock certificates?? “Doug”, I shouted. “You might want to check this out”. Box after box. Wing tips, white bucks, original ATT certificates. Original ATT certificates! Gads! And so it was. A complete fortune in stock certificates tucked away in shoe boxes. The old guy simply didn’t trust banks, so he bought stock and kept the certificates in shoe boxes. And in his senility, he had forgotten all about them. Very suddenly, Doug was rich!

Not very long after words, my time at PJ Construction came to an end, and I went off to graduate school in NYC. By quietly selling these stock certificates, Doug paid off all his creditors and had a life of some ease for a while. He and Big Cille took quite a few trips, virtually going around the world. They spent a lot of time exploring the Caribbean Islands. Then, alas, Big Cille passed away. For a while, Doug was a lost soul, but then he married a women named May, and I think he was happy thereafter. I know he struggled with his drinking, and I believe with May’s help, he did manage to lick it.

Years later, Doug sought me out when I was home visiting my parents, and we went out for a sort of re-union. Doug told me the most extraordinary story. On one of the Caribbean Islands, Doug encountered an abandoned “ruin” of a Gothic style cathedral, mostly covered by the tropical jungle that existed there. And he uncovered the story of this structure. It seems that during the age of exploration, the Holy Roman Catholic Church sent out an expedition of exploration which found and claimed this Island for the Vatican. The Church then set out to build a great cathedral which was to be the seat of the Holy See in the New World. In the building of this vast church, however, the priests managed to work the natives to extinction, leaving the cathedral only partially complete. By the time the sorry saga drew to a close, the church fell into ruins and was reclaimed by the jungle while the native population was virtually wiped out. Doug told me that he considered this to be an allegory for the presence of the Roman Catholic Church in the New World. He said that it should be written as the definitive novel of the Church in the New World, but that he was too old to write it. He “charged” me with writing this great novel. He told me exactly which Island to find the ruins, where to look up the story, everything I need to write “his” great opus. But it was never to be. I had to finish graduate school, then time in New Mexico in the film business and such. I have always felt that I let him down by not writing this novel. And I still agree; it sounds like the perfect allegory for the development of American civilization. But now, I can’t even remember what Island this took place on.

By the time my life settled down, and I started working at Hampden, Doug was retired and living quietly with May. We saw very little of each other, especially since Doug had quit drinking, and I think May saw me as a potential “bad influence” for Doug, which, truth be told, was probably true.

One day, upon returning from a week on Martha’s Vineyard with friends, I learned that Doug had died and his funeral had come and gone. His daughters called me, just as I entered my home and suggested that I come over for a quick reunion. I was exhausted from a week of reverie with my friends, so I declined. I have always felt bad about that. I hadn’t seen the three girls in years, and I haven’t seen any of them since. But over the years, I realize that I have another regret, even more powerful. Somehow, I let Doug go to his great reward – and I never got to tell him just how much I loved him. Well, if there is a God in heaven, he knows. He knows.

Thinking Things Through

The picture to the left was taken in 1952. I am with our dog, Joey, and I am proudly wearing one of my father's Army caps. You can just see one of the vacant lots and the begining of the woods in the background.




Our house on Montgomery Ave. in Holyoke, MA was at the end of a dead end street. To the north, just past our house, were two vacant lots, and on the other side of these vacant lots began “the woods”. The woods were so important to me as a child that I sometimes view this space as a kind of character in my life. There was a straight path through the woods to the Daniel Wax home where my friends Marilee and Bobby Wax lived, and then on to the home of my friend, Dana Hathaway, the only child of Dwight and Doris Hathaway. Both the Wax and Hathaway homes were essentially to the west of the woods, right on Northampton Street (Rt 5); those homes are still there, but alas, the Waxes and the Hathaways are long gone. To the north of “our woods” are the dinosaur tracks which I write about in another piece on my Blog. However, we rarely roamed north of the Hathaway house. On the eastern boundary of our woods there is a steep embankment, at the bottom of which are the RR tracks which run from Holyoke to Northampton and on to Montreal (though just about the only train traffic today are cars containing coal for the Mt. Tom Power Plant), and just beyond the tracks lies the Connecticut River. We rarely went down this embankment, because our parents told us that tramps stalked the RR tracks looking to kidnap little boys and girls. There was an old log stairway down the embankment, but we hardly ever went down there.

We all loved the woods; we could play all sorts of games there; “cowboys and Indians”, “capture the flag”, “kick the can”. We built tree houses in the woods (where I was the “ground lookout” because I couldn’t climb trees). One year, we made ice blocks using snow and boxes, and we built an igloo out of these blocks. We discovered that it’s true; if you sit in an ice igloo for a while, it gets quite warm from the heat of our bodies. . Of course, with the trapped heat of our bodies, it started to drip inside. I could never understand how real Eskimos managed to live with the constant dripping. Over time, I got to know every square inch of the woods. I remember once I had to go into the woods to retrieve Eddy Abbot’s pants which had been taken from him by the “older” kids in the neighborhood. Eddy hid in a bush until I found his pants. He never showed much gratitude, though. Well, I was just a little guy at the time, and I don’t think it was Eddy’s finest moment.

One time, Gary Cox, the oldest son of Dr. Gardner and Helen Cox, tagged along as a few of my palls and I went playing in the woods. Gary was a few years younger than we “big” kids, so we decided to play a trick on him. We told him we were going to play hide and seek and he was it. As he closed his eyes and counted to 100, we ran away. But before Gary got to 100, we started yelling “Help, Help – the tramps have caught us.” Gary went tearing off, and we all had a good laugh. But unfortunately, we had not thought this out completely. Gary ran straight home screaming “The tramps have Bobby Fowler and Larka Twing and Jerry Web. The tramps have them”. This in turn led to urgent phone calls to our mothers, who absolutely freaked out. The police were summoned. And as Jerry, Larka and I casually emerged from the woods, we discovered that we were in a raft of trouble. But worse was to come.

Once, a friend of mine and I found a huge boulder right at the edge of the embankment. I honestly can’t remember who that friend was. It might be easy to guess it was Jerry Webb; whenever I got into trouble, Jerry was generally there. Anyway, we decided to see if we could get the boulder to roll down the embankment a bit. We dug out the dirt surrounding the boulder and pushed and pushed. At first it didn’t budge, then it rocked a bit, then more --- and finally, to our delight, it came out of its hole and started to roll down the embankment. It was a very heavy boulder and a very steep embankment, and the boulder simply bounced off of trees and such as it plunged down below. We were, like I said, delighted. Well, we were delighted for a little while. Just a moment, really. Then we weren’t delighted.

In fact, we were quickly horrified. You see, we just hadn’t thought this thing out completely. The boulder had simply bounced off of every obstacle until it came to rest right between the rails of the RR tracks. Yikes! Down the log stairway we went. And we pushed and we pushed, but we were unable to roll the boulder out of the tracks. It started to get dark. We were nervous about the tramps. Our parents expected us home for dinner. So we did the natural kid thing – we climbed back up the log stairs, went home and forgot all about it.

About a week later, my family was just sitting down to dinner. My father was finishing drinking his martini and reading the newspaper. “Here’s an interesting bit of news”, said my father, as he folded the newspaper. “A train de-railed near here. Just north of our house, I think. Seems the train hit a big rock and went right off the tracks. Fortunately, it was a freight train and nobody was hurt.” I was absolutely immobilized with fear, but I managed with great effort to say nothing. In fact, I said nothing to anybody about this little episode until both of my parents were many years deceased. Why take chances? To tell the truth, before writing this piece in my Blog, I have tried to look up the statute of limitations on train de-railings. Not much luck finding precedent of young children de-railing trains, but according to general tort law, I think I am ok about revealing this little mishap now. Anyway, I’ll bet lots of kids have de-railed trains. Like me, they just didn’t get caught. So what’s the big deal? I used to think this was the worst thing I ever did. But on reflection, I realize that I have done much worse things in my life. I’m just not going to tell you about those other things. Let’s just say that de-railing a train was fairly close to the worse thing I’ve ever did and leave it at that.

On the 4th of November, 1955, an airplane crashed into the river just below “our woods” and promptly sank. It was a C-47 ( a twin engine “tail dragger”, the military version of the famous DC 6) on route to Westover Airfield. There were 8 people on board; only 4 survived. The pilot had radioed Westover that he was having engine difficulty. It is supposed that the plane encountered carburetor icing and subsequent engine failure. I have always imagined that the pilot, realizing that he couldn’t make it to Westover, looked at his charts and saw this long, straight stretch of the River – an inviting emergency landing strip. Of course, he had aeronautical maps which would NOT have shown water depth. And the water is very shallow there in “the rapids”; the rocks simply tore the belly out of the plane. Moreover, just past the rapids, the water gets very deep, going to 80 feet in some places. So the plane came down, hit the rocks, suffered catastrophic damage to the underside of the aircraft and then sank in extremely deep water.

Immediately, all sorts of people showed up in a large scale effort to recover the plane and the bodies of the occupants who didn’t get out of the plane. There were frog men, and cranes and special railcars outfitted with emergency equipment, and boats of all description. Oh boy! This was serious stuff for a 10 year old kid. Frog men, for crying out loud! A real plane!! Dead people!!! Like every kid in the neighborhood, I begged my parents to temporarily lift the ban on going down the embankment so I could watch the fantastic goings on. And I had an ingenious argument; with all these military and special-forces guys around, how could a tramp possibly kidnap me? Eventually, my parents relented, with all sorts of admonitions about staying out of the way of the workers and certainly staying out of the River. It was November! What were they thinking I might do?

As it turned out, the emergency workers were great about our little band of spectators. They seemed happy to have us about and even invited us to keep warm by the big brush fire they always had going to keep the frog men from freezing to death. My mother sent me down there with cookies, doughnuts and other treats for the workers, so that helped in making us welcome. For days, I would beg the clock to move faster as I sat squirming in school, and then I would bound home and head straight for the embankment stairs and the River. We all expected a plane to emerge from the River with dead bodies at any time, but it was not to be. At least while I was observing, no plane ever came out of the River.

Some years later, after I mentioned this to a friend, she sent me newspaper clippings from that time which reported the entire event AND stated that the plane had indeed been recovered, dragged to the South Hadley side of the River and sent on to Westover for the detailed safety examination to determine the cause of the crash. How could I have missed it? Even if it was recovered during the day when I was in school, certainly the recovery workers would have told us.

Much later, a good friend, Carl Eger, told me that he was one of the three frogmen attempting to recover the plane. This is what he has told me:

"The airplane was a military C-47 that we know in civilian life as a DC-3. It is not uncommon for the military to leave downed planes that are in odd places and difficult to retrieve, e.g. there is one left in Quabbin Reservoir. They do take the time to make certain sensitive equipment is removed - if possible - and that there is no leaking of fuel. The pilot ended up as far away as Essex, CT. A sailor unfortunately made it thru the canal gatehouse, ending up next to the former Parsons Paper Co. - certain of his anatomy missing. Another passenger, a Naval Commander, ended up surviving and making it out of the river onto Rt. 5, north of where you lived. As for the airplane, it is still in the river at the bend where N. Pleasant & Montgomery Streets intersect. Though we were able to make it down to the plane in search for any human remains of those who might not have made it out of the aircraft, none were found inside. Because of the current, we had to use a surfing type board with a rope tied to a motor boat, and by planning it in a downward position the current took us to where we could maneuver to the plane and not be swept away by the fast current."

Now this has intrigued me. If the plane was not recovered, why did the Air Force put out the story to the press that they had recovered the plane? I can only think of one reason – to discourage people from looking for it.

I did ultimately pay a price for the fun I had during this exciting time. Remember the brush fire that was always burning to warm the workers and the frogmen? Well, they must have thrown in some poison ivy. Do you know you can get the poison ivy rash from exposure to smoke? Indeed you can. In fact, it is a very dangerous way to get poison ivy. Of course, as I sat by the fire waiting anxiously to see dead bodies, I had no idea. I got an epic case. It was interesting that I got the rash on one side of my face, neck and head but not the other. I must have been facing sideways to the smoke, no doubt to help me breathe. But on that one side, the rash was devastating. One whole side of my face was so swollen that my cheek hung down on my shoulder. But more seriously, I got it in my ear, up my nose, even on one of my eyeballs. What concerned my doctor the most was the fact that I got a small exposure to the poison in my lungs. This can actually kill you. I was put on all sorts of powerful anti histamine medications and kept home from school for weeks. Ever since that experience, I have been hyper-sensitive to poison ivy, and believe me, I have learned to identify it and stay the hell away from that plant. Several of my childhood friends got the poison ivy rash as well, though no one got it as bad as I did. I would imagine that many of the frogmen and emergency workers got it as well. They were sitting closer to the fire than we kids, so some of them probably got fairly severe cases. You see, they just hadn’t thought this brush fire business through completely.

Most of the woods were owned by Daniel Wax. I was very good friends with both of his children, and was often at their home. Dan Wax was a real character. My parents didn’t like him all that much, but they loved his wife Agatha. One 4th of July, Dan brought to the annual neighborhood party some truly fabulous fireworks. Fireworks had just become illegal in Massachusetts, so God knows where Dan got them. Probably from that “outlaw” state, Connecticut. But Dan’s fireworks clearly outshone all of the other pinwheels, sparklers and roman candles and such. One firework in particular was to be Dan’s “Grand Finale”. It was shaped like an ambulance with wheels and everything. When lit, it was supposed to go screaming across the field propelled by rocket power, complete with a loud siren and flashing lights, and then it was to explode. Dan lit the fuse and the entire neighborhood waited expectantly. Nothing. Dan walked back to it and nudged it with his foot. Nothing. Dan tried to re-light the fuse. Nothing. Annoyed, Dan picked it up and peered under it. Not thinking it through, again. BLAM. Off to the hospital, but nothing serious had happened, just a few minor burns.

Another year, Dan Wax invited the entire neighborhood to his house for the annual 4th of July party. And again, Dan had acquired the most dramatic fireworks. One rocket was fired off, shot up over the woods, exploded into these wonderful star bursts and such. “Ohh.” “Ah.” The star bursts slowly descended, unfortunately without extinguishing, and promptly started a fire deep in the woods. Dan had not thought this through, completely, and he had no “contingency plan” for a fire. Consequently, the fire department was called, and the firemen were not amused when they arrived. In fact, the firemen were notably annoyed because it was a difficult fire to control, way away from fire hydrants and such. And they were probably called away from their own fireworks parties. Since the firemen and several police officers were down there in the woods, Dan didn’t fire any more rockets in their direction, though I honestly think he would have done just that if Agatha had not pleaded with him to stop. Obviously, Agatha had thought that through.

I spent many nights enjoying “sleepovers” at the Wax house. They had the biggest house in our neighborhood. It was huge, with rooms on rooms. It had a complete bar, for example, just about the same size as Francy’s Tavern in Holyoke. While I was friends with Merilee, I was very good friends with Bobby Wax. When I was about 8 years old, Bobby Wax had managed to discover his father’s pornography collection, hidden away in a big box in Mr. Wax’s closet. We pored over these magazines every time his parents were not around. I got some very early anatomy lessons from these pictures. Some of these magazines were what we would call today “hard core”. Bobby Wax told me he thought that what we were looking at had something to do with making babies. Of course, the people in these pictures were doing all sorts of things to each other, so it was hard to tell precisely what had to do with making babies, besides getting undressed. Maybe you had to do all of those things to make a baby.

Now this puzzled, indeed, troubled me no end. Naturally, I had asked my mother where babies came from, but she had told me that I was delivered by the mailman, and that satisfied me for several years. Our mailman delivered all sorts of things; why not babies? But after looking at Mr. Wax’s porno magazines, I began to have serious misgivings about the mailman. I knew my father had been away for a long time fighting in WWII …… Could it be???? …… One day about that time, our Welch Terrier dog, Joey, bit the mailman. This distressed my mother because she feared that we might have to put our dog to sleep if the mailman lodged a complaint. I remember thinking: “Probably served him right”. Well, I just hadn’t thought it through completely.

My First Friends

Martha & Jim Anwell

Me and Toby Chase, Halloween, 1952

Jerry Webb, Toby Chase & Dana Hathaway, Halloween, 1952

Millie Chase, my Mother and me, Mother's March of Dimes Campaign on WHYN, 1952



I spent most of my fourth year of life in the Polio Ward of the Holyoke Hospital, as related in an earlier writing. I spent the first part of my fifth year in the Physical Therapy Department of the Holyoke Hospital. So I really began my “social life” towards the end of my fifth year. That’s when I met my first friends, Toby Chase and Dana Hathaway.

Both boys were a year older than I was. More importantly, they were wiser in the ways of the world than I was. Since my “formative years” were spent battling back from disease, I was at a definite disadvantage when it came to life’s little competitions and such. Whenever the three of us got together, I was always the one on the bottom of the totem pole.

Let me give you an example. One day just before I entered kindergarten at the Highland Elementary School, the three of us were playing in Toby’s back yard when his mother, Millie Chase, had to leave for a moment. Millie Chase was a famous radio personality on our local WHYN radio station here in Holyoke, Mass. “Now you boys play nice and don’t get into any trouble; I’ll only be gone a little while.” She was no sooner out of sight when Toby bounded into the house and came out with his father’s BB air rifle. Toby had been unable to locate any real BB’s, though, so for some time we just had fun pumping it up and shooting it. But that got boring, so Toby went back into the house in search of the allusive BB’s. Again, he failed to find any. He came out instead with a hand full of Rice Krispies which he normally ate for breakfast. (remember “Snap, Crackle & Pop”?) Toby put the Rice Krispies into the rifle’s BB chamber and pumped it up. They then put one of Mr. Chase’s hats on my head and took turns trying to shoot it off my head.

Do you see what I mean by “low man on the totem pole.” Naturally, I would have preferred to shoot the hat off Toby’s head. Fat chance. But being a trooper, I just stood there with this hat on my head, waiting for the worst. Fortunately for me, the Rice Krispies were too soft to do any damage. In fact, they were too soft to shoot out of the gun at all. Since Toby and Dana couldn’t shoot the hat off my head at point blank range, we all gave up on the idea, and Toby quickly put the rifle back in his father’s closet. It was always like that when the three of us played together. I was always on the bottom. But we all had a lot of fun together anyway.

Toby’s mother, I now realize, must have held the view that to be “regular” meant to go to the bathroom at exactly the same time every day. This was very different than at my house, where we all went to the bathroom when nature told us to. We boys would be playing in the back yard, and Toby’s mother would come out and say “Toby, you have to go to the bathroom now.” And Toby would dutifully get up and go to the bathroom. I remember that this amazed me. How does she know? I would wonder. It really did puzzle me back then.

When I was six, Toby’s father, Mr. Chase (I believe his first name was Homer) took Toby and me to an auction. I had never been to an auction before, so the whole idea was very exciting. My mother gave me a dollar and suggested that, as my father’s birthday was coming up, I buy a present for him. Mr. Chase had us sit right in the front row. As the auctioneer put up the first item, he asked “Who will start the bidding at a dollar?” Mr. Chase nodded at me, and I quickly raised my hand. Well, of course, the bidding went on way past a dollar, and someone else bought the item. The second item was put up, and again I started the biding with a dollar. And again the bidding went flying past a dollar.

The auctioneer quickly found this humorous and started the bidding of everything by pointing to me as he asked for an opening bid of a dollar. I bid a dollar on every single item that came up for sale. And in every case, the bidding went right past a dollar. Hour after hour, my dollar sat restlessly in my pocket. It got late. The best items had all been sold. People started to leave. Mr. Chase wanted to leave. But I still had my dollar and no present for my dad. Finally, after most people had long gone, the auctioneer quickly put up an item, pointed directly at me and asked if I bid a dollar? “Yes”, I said. “I bid a dollar”. “SOLD!!!” shouted the auctioneer.

I was so excited. I handed in my dollar and proudly took away my purchase. Mr. Chase was happy too, because we finally could go home. My mother was happy and helped me wrap it. On my father’s birthday, I proudly gave it to him. And my father was happy and excited to receive it. Yes, he was. In fact, he kept that present for years and years. And no wonder. It was fifty feet of underground electric fence wire. Every father’s dream present! Of course, we didn’t have an electric fence on Montgomery Avenue in Holyoke at the time, so my present stayed in its box in the cellar. You see, we didn’t have horses back then. But my father was happy with his gift nevertheless. When we moved to South Hadley, he insisted on bringing the electric fence wire with us. By then, I was in college. We never had an electric fence in South Hadley, either. Well, that was understandable; we still didn’t have any horses.

My most vivid memory of my seventh year was Halloween. By then, Jerry Webb had joined our little band of friends. That year, for Halloween, Jerry Webb dressed as a dangerous hobo. We were all afraid of hobos because our parents told us that hobos walked the train tracks down by the river and were fond of kidnapping little boys like us. (That way, we were all too frightened to go near the RR tracks and the nearby Connecticut River.) Dana Hathaway got to go as a vicious pirate, complete with a sword, a black eye patch and a knife between his teeth. Toby Chase was dressed as a brave big game hunter, with a pith helmet and everything. He even got to carry his father’s BB gun. My mother dressed me as a woman! A woman? A gypsy woman at that. Talk about Low Man on the Totem Pole! What was my mother thinking about? I already was pudgy from her efforts to fatten me up from polio, and I already was handicapped with a bad arm. Now, I had to be gender confused?

Anyway, off into the night I went with my luckier friends to fill my bag with candy. Our first stop was the Anwell’s. Jim and Martha Anwell lived right across the street and were grand friends of my parents. Martha greeted us at her door, candy bowl in hand. But Mrs. Anwell was suddenly concerned that Toby seemed to be toting a “real” gun. “Oh, don’t worry, Mrs. Anwell”, said Toby, who pumped the gun a few times. “It isn’t loaded. Watch.” He then pointed the gun into Mrs. Anwell’s house and pulled the trigger. Remember the Rice Krispies? Well, Rice Krispies get hard after sitting out for a few years. Hard as, … well, as hard as BB’s. BLAM, and one of Mrs. Anwell’s hallway lamps jumped off a table onto the floor with a loud crash.

Martha Anwell marched all of us back across the street to my house where she shouted things at my surprised mother. In the end, Toby was made to leave the BB gun at my house, and we continued on into the night trick or treating. “My, what do we have here; ah, I see a dangerous hobo, and a blood thirsty pirate, and a reasonably brave, albeit gun-less big game hunter, and ah, ah, well, aren’t you adorable?” Adorable! Let me tell you, no seven year old boy wants to be adorable. At least, I didn’t. The trick or treat candy made up for it, I suppose.

Years later, there was a real shooting in our neighborhood, and that saga likewise ended on Halloween. Just down on North Pleasant Street was the Henry Noel residence. One night, when the Noels were in bed, they heard a noise down stairs. Mr. Noel got up, took his unloaded shotgun from his closet, and went down the stairs to frighten the burglar. Unfortunately, that’s just what he did; he frightened the burglar, who promptly shot Mr Noel quite dead on the stairs. The whole neighborhood was alarmed. Burglars in the night! In their own home while they were in bed! Who was safe?

Actually, there were nasty whisperings that Mr. Noel had caught his wife in bed with another man, whereby a fight broke out, and Henry got the worst of it. One way or another, Mrs. Noel was somehow excised from the neighborhood. Everyone simply avoided her. For example, she was not invited to the neighborhood 4th of July party, and nobody sang Christmas carols at her door on Christmas Eve. I was her paper boy at the time. One day, she stopped me as I “collected” from her, and she told me that she was having a grand Halloween party. She asked me to tell the entire neighborhood that everyone was invited. This I managed to do. And after our trick or treating, the entire neighborhood wound up at Mrs. Noel’s house. All the parents came as well, no doubt curious about what the fuss was about. What a party!!! Mrs. Noel had an entire living room full of treats for the kids; cakes, ice cream, sodas, cookies, candies. It was heaven. And she had beer, cocktails and such for the parents. Everyone had a terrific time, and from then on, Mrs. Noel was “back in” the neighborhood.

When I was eight, Mr. Chase died suddenly. I remember being absolutely confused about it. An eight year old has a very tenuous grasp on the concept of mortality. After the funeral, Millie Chase quickly moved away. I imagine, now, that she must have moved back to be with her own people after the sudden and unexpected death of her husband. I never saw Toby Chase again. I eventually lost contact with Jerry Webb and Dana Hathaway when I went away to college. I did bump into Jerry one evening at a concert at Mt. Holyoke College about fifteen years ago or so, but we didn’t get much of a chance to talk. I don’t think we could think of much to say to one another, really. So many years.

A short while ago, somebody told me that Dana Hathaway had died suddenly of something or other when he was only in his 50’s. I remember it gave me a very creepy feeling when I learned of Dana’s death. You see, I still have a rather tenuous grasp on the concept of mortality.

The Strawbridge family lived directly across the street from our house and next door to the Anwalls. Richard and Dorothy Strawbridge had two boys, David and Dick. Both were a few years older than I was, so we never really played together. I did get to “inherit” the Strawbridge brother’s discarded toys, as Mr. and Mrs. Strawbridge would give me these things for Christmas presents as their boys moved on to other interests. These were always great toys, really, and I always looked forward to the Strawbridge Christmas presents.

I remember one Strawbridge gift in particular, a chemistry set. It was a beauty. It had lots of little jars of chemicals and a book for doing experiments. My uncle Ralph was a professional chemist, and he looked over the experiment book and decided to contribute a little himself. He gave me some more chemicals in jars and a handwritten book of new experiments to try. Perhaps the most exciting of Ralph’s experiments involved putting sulfur crystals into a weak acid, which resulted in the production of hydrogen sulfide gas. Our cellar stank for days. You know, I suspect that my mother never really liked Uncle Ralph.

This experience did teach me a valuable chemistry lesson, though, which I was able to put to good use later when I was in prep school. One day during my sophomore year, when nobody was looking, I put a Coca-Cola cap full of lemon juice under the bed of the student next door. I then hung a string with a crystal of sulfur (that I snuck out of the chemistry lab) under his mattress springs so that the sulfur dangled just above the lemon juice. Nothing happened, of course, until the lad got into bed after “lights out”, and the mattress springs sagged a bit under his weight. My roommate and I could hardly contain ourselves as we heard them arguing next door. “You’re disgusting! What did you have for dinner, a dead rat?” “What do you mean me; it’s not me – it’s you!!!” And so on. It was terrific, though ultimately the entire dorm had to be evacuated and aired out before we could return to bed. I learned later on that hydrogen sulfide gas is actually a fairly lethal poison, but young boys don’t consider those little details. Of course, that didn’t seem to bother my Uncle Ralph much either, and he was a grown man at the time. A chemist, no less.

Another Strawbridge Christmas present was David’s and Dick’s magic kit. It had many wonderful tricks. I used to practice for hours making pennies disappear and dimes appear in their place and so on. One day, as I returned from school, my mother was entertaining her bridge club. “Show us a few tricks, Bobby”, my mother said. I went upstairs and brought down my magic kit. I performed a few tricks successfully, and then I attempted my famous “tape measure” trick. The tape measure trick consisted of a very “special” tape measure. It looked normal enough, but it had several hidden snaps along its length, and it had special Bobbie Pins at each end. Where Bobbie Pins normally spring out and are locked into place, these Bobbie Pins sprang in and fit into a simple grove. Theoretically, they pulled right out when you yanked on them.

I called for a volunteer, and one of my mother’s bridge friends stepped forward. I appeared to wrap the tape measure around her (but I simply hooked the snaps behind her instead of actually wrapping the tape around her). I then “pinned” the tape to the front of her blouse with the special Bobbie Pins. A few “Abra-Kadabras”, a quick wave of my magic wand, and I suddenly yanked the tape from my mother’s friend. But the trick failed, somehow. The snaps worked perfectly, but the pins didn’t slide off as they were supposed to, and I summarily ripped the entire front of the poor lady’s blouse right clean off, which just for a moment revealed her “unrevealables” before she ran screaming for the bathroom. Quite the memorable moment, that! Well, some things you just never forget. In any event, it ended my magic show. In fact, as I recall, it ended the bridge party. To tell the whole truth, it ended my career as a magician altogether. My mother certainly never asked me to perform again.

There was an elderly woman named Edith Murlless who lived next door to the Strawbridges. She was a wonderful old lady, and my mother frequently encouraged me to visit her. Mrs. Murlless had an extraordinary collection of antique glass paper weights that she kept in a large glass case. She was always prepared with cookies or a piece of cake or something, which, of course, I appreciated; just another cog in the everlasting struggle against thinness. I never gave it much thought as a kid, but I later learned that her husband, Dr. Charles Murlless had passed away in 1951. He had been a local dentist in Holyoke for years. I never met Dr. Murlless. Mrs. Murlless must have been very lonely, as they had been married for many, many years. That was no doubt why my mother was always sending me over there to chat. But actually, I really liked Mrs. Murlless, and I never minded going to see her. She always had a cheerful smile and was always happy to see me. And, of course, there was always the cookie or piece of cake. She apparently had no children or grandchildren of her own. None that I can remember, anyway. Mrs. Murlless was always alone and always happy to receive company, even if it was an eight year old kid. I can’t recall anyone else in the entire neighborhood having anything to do with Mrs. Murlless. Certainly the good Dr.’s patients never gave her a second thought. But that’s dentistry for you, I suppose.

Next to Mrs. Murlless was the Twing’s house. Kirby Twing and his family were all interesting folks and great friends, but that is the stuff for another story……..

Polio

Mother's March of Dimes Poster Picture. I am handing Phil Ryan, the Postmaster of Holyoke, MA a check from the campaign. Taken in 1950. I was only out of the hospital 1 year.

My earliest memory of my childhood is throwing up in my grandfather’s car. My grandfather (and my name sake, Robert Knox) had recently had a heart attack and was told to rest. So he spent a lot of time with me, having virtually raised me for the first several years of my life because my father was off fighting in WWII. I remember that I was very upset, as my grandfather used to take great pride in cleaning and polishing his car, and I had summarily yapped all over the backseat. This was the first sign that I had contracted polio. To be more specific, I had come down with Paralytic Poliomyelitis – also called “Infantile Paralysis. It was the summer of 1949, and I was four years old.

Right off the bat, it should be said that doctors in those days knew next to nothing about the disease. They had only vague ideas about what caused polio or how it was spread. They had even fewer ideas on how to treat it. They did note that the majority of cases struck very young children, but they had no idea why. The disease was first described by Michael Underwood in 1789, though “indications” of the disease date back to Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was confirmed as a virus in 1909 by Karl Landsteiner and Erwin Popper; they also confirmed two significant facts about polio: it was definitely contagious, somehow traveling between one host to another -- and – an initial infection conferred immunity to further infections.

Polio came in waves or epidemics. It first appeared as a disease to be reckoned with in Europe in the early 1800’s. Stockholm, Sweden suffered major outbreaks in 1887, 1905, and 1911. The first recorded outbreak in the USA occurred in Vermont in 1894. Slowly the disease picked up steam; the epidemic of 1916 left 6,000 dead and 27,000 disabled in New York State alone. There were outbreaks throughout the USA after that, occurring every few years. The lowest number of cases during the war years was 4, 167 (1940). My year, 1949, was a bad year with 42, 003 cases nation-wide. But the worst year was 1952 when a whopping 58,000 cases of paralytic polio occurred in the USA. Worldwide, the numbers went into the millions.

While doctors knew that the disease was caused by a virus, they knew little else. Most importantly, they did not know how the virus was transmitted from person to person. All kinds of theories abounded. A goodly percentage of kids growing up in the 1940s – 1950s never learned to swim because it was feared that the virus could hop from one kid to another through the water in swimming pools. Initially, there was a real stigma of having contracted the disease. Years ago, I met a women who became sick with polio around the time that I came down with the disease. She and her family had been living in the flats in south Holyoke. But when her father realized that she had polio, the entire family left their home in the middle of the night and secretly took residence in a house in South Hadley Falls. Her presence there was kept a secret for years, as the family feared that neighbors would “run them out of town” if they found out that a polio victim was living in their house. In my case, I was isolated from the rest of society for almost my entire 4th year in the Polio Ward at the Holyoke Hospital. To my knowledge, all the patients there were kids. The Polio Ward was a restricted area in the hospital. Only parents and health care givers were allowed in, and then only for short visits. It was considered highly dangerous for people to enter this ward. My parents were always grateful for the nurses and doctors who cared for the polio victims; it was understood that they were taking their life in their own hands just by walking into that room.

During that year in the hospital, I became progressively weaker. Eventually, almost my entire body was paralyzed. At one point, I was having difficulty swallowing and had to be fed through a tube. It was feared that my chest muscles would fail, making it impossible for me to breathe, so an “iron lung” was put next to my bed in case I started to suffocate. Thankfully, I never needed it. And boy, I mean “thankfully”! When you went into an iron lung, only your head and feet protruded from this huge, diving bell like apparatus. Few people who went into an iron lung ever came out. It was a life sentence of lying on your back while a machine breathed for you. But my chest muscles kept on working when just about every other muscle group simply stopped functioning. This was no small mercy. I have always been grateful for my chest muscles. Nice going, guys!!

The word poliomyelitis is derived from the Greek “polio” which means “grey” and “myelon” which means “marrow”. In other words, poliomyelitis is a disease of the Grey Marrow, which was taken to mean the spinal column. It is now understood that the polio virus was extremely common. Just about everyone was exposed to this virus as a child. Most kids weren’t even aware when the virus entered their bodies; their immune system simply “flushed” it out through their intestines. AND, this momentary ‘brush” with the killer gave them permanent immunity from the virus for the rest of their lives. In a very few cases, the virus managed to enter the victim’s blood stream, causing general flu like symptoms of fever and so on for a week or two. And in probably less than 1% of those cases where the virus entered the blood, it also managed to get into the central nervous system, where it traveled down the spinal column destroying motor neurons as it moved along. It is still not known why some few kids came down with full blown paralytic polio while the vast majority of kids didn’t even break a sweat. By the time most people entered their teenage and adult years, they had long since had their little run in with the polio virus and thereby obtained their lifetime “Get Out of Jail Free Card”.

Of course, there were always exceptions. Probably the best known was Franklin D. Roosevelt who contracted paralytic polio after he was married. The polio virus was particularly dangerous to adults who had not been exposed to the virus as a child. Ironically, modern sanitation has the potential of making us even more vulnerable to polio. It was frequently known as the Disease of Development. Why you might well ask? In areas of poor sanitation, virtually all kids are exposed to the virus, and most kids can defeat the virus with their own immune system. However, for kids living in the developed nations that have excellent public sanitation, natural exposure to the virus is less frequent, leading to the potential for more cases of adult on-set polio, like FDR.

It is now known that the polio virus traveled from host to host via what is called the “anal-fecal-oral route”........ Geese, Louise!!!!! Talk about piling on insult after injury!! “You know, Bobby, you were a strange little baby. Just as soon as you could crawl about on your hands and knees, you took an intense, even obsessive interest in the bottoms of other babies. This behavior embarrassed your mother and positively alarmed your father. But the doctors said it was just a phase, and that you’d grow out of it…….” No, it didn’t mean that at all. No doubt the majority of infections came simply because someone infected with the virus went to the bathroom and then did not wash and sanitize their hands before they handled food that others were going to consume. Still another pretty yucky thought, if you ask me.

There were three distinct types of paralytic polio. Some 70% of the cases were Type 1 or “Spinal Polio”. Type 1 polio almost always involved permanent paralysis, which was usually asymmetrical (meaning, for example, that one arm would be paralyzed and the other arm left unharmed.) Spinal Polio most frequently affected the patient’s legs. Type 2, Bulbar Polio occurred in some 2% of the cases and was considered to be the most dangerous and life threatening because it attacked the trunk – what today we would call a person’s core. Type 3 polio was a combination of the first two, called Bulbospinal Polio. Naturally, that’s what I had. This generally meant some sort of asymmetrical paralysis and the real possibility of dying because of “core shutdown”. Yup, Type 3 Bulbospinal Polio was the pick of the litter, no doubt about it.

In fact, I was on the Holyoke Hospital’s “Danger List” for just over nine months. When I came out of the Polio Ward, I was almost completely paralyzed, but with daily intense physical therapy that took place during my entire 5th year, I regained the use of most muscles that had been lost. By the time I entered school in my 6th year, I was only left with extensive paralysis in my upper right arm and shoulder, some general weakness in my right lower arm and hand as well as some fairly minor loss of my trunk muscles, which has led, over the years, to degenerative disc disease and substantial curvature of the spine. The good news was: my left arm and both my legs, indeed everything else in my body was just fine.

I have only vague memories of the Polio Ward at the Holyoke Hospital. Of course, I was just a little guy. I do remember the “hot packs”. There was a theory at the time that the virus was sensitive to heat, so the nurses would strap these electric, wool blankets all over my body, wet them with water and crank up the heat to “drive that awful bug away.” Hot packs had a peculiar smell, like burning hair. The heat was terrible, the wool was scratchy … ah, yes, I remember the hot packs all right. I remember that I could look out the window and see cars going up and down Hospital Drive; and occasionally, I could pick out my parents’ car as they drove away. It was scary for a little boy to see his parents driving away into the night, but the nurses were grand and made me feel like I wasn’t completely lost.

Oddly enough, my most vivid memory of the Polio Ward had to do with the floor. The Hospital had “linoleum” flooring, which was quite new for its day. Anyway, it was new to me. I had only seen wood floors with rugs. I was fascinated by the swirling colors that almost seemed to be three dimensional, and I spent hours lying in my hospital bed wondering what it would be like to walk on that floor. The nurses picked up on this desire and used it as a carrot; “Do all your exercises, and someday you will get strong enough to walk on this floor”. It became my most important goal in life. And I distinctly remember my excitement when my parents told me that I could go home the very next day. All I could think of was, “I’m going to walk on the floor”. But the next day, they wrapped me up in sheets and carried me out of the hospital (screaming all the way, mind you). One day, when I was in my 30’s, I suddenly remembered this “unfulfilled” wish. I spoke with Harold Pine, the Hospital president at the time. Harold did a little research and found out exactly what room I was in. This was in the “old” section of the Hospital, and the floors had never been changed. So Harold and I had a grand old time walking about on that silly floor together. I know Harold thought it was all very amusing. I am sure he had no inkling of what it meant to me.

My father was quite slender most of his life, and I was a slender baby. However, polio had made me dangerously thin. As my parents took me home, the doctors pulled my mother aside and stressed the importance of my gaining some weight. So my mother set out to “fatten me up”. I think it’s safe to say that she succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. But beyond getting lots of ice cream and such, that first year out of the hospital was difficult for everybody. For me, it meant arm and leg braces and endless exercises in physical therapy. On top of all this, my parents were constantly telling me how “lucky” I was. Of course, they were happy I was still alive, but a young boy frequently overlooks that basic blessing. That year began a major struggle between my mother, on the one side, and everyone else (my father, my grandmother, the doctors, etc) on the other side of the issue of how much help I should get from adults in getting through the basics of life. My mother hated to see me suffer, and she hated to see me frustrated, so her approach was to keep me in bed, or at least tight by her side and to virtually do everything for me. The doctors and my father kept warning her that if she insisted on doing even the simplest things, like getting me dressed, she would ultimately have a real, life time invalid on her hands. So she had to stand there and watch me battle zippers and buttons and such with one arm. But gradually, I learned how to do these things by myself.

The battle continued over the question of my being allowed to go “outside” the house on my own. I had no memory of ever being “outside” alone. “He’s not ready”, my mother would sob. “Sure he is” would be my father’s reply. At that point, both parents were looking at the calendar, wondering if I would be ready to start school when I turned 6 years old, like everyone else. So one day, I (with my mother fidgeting nearby) bundled myself up in a snowsuit which took about an hour. The front door was opened for me because the stupid snowsuit was so stiff, I could hardly move at all. I stepped forward, and my mother tearfully shut the door behind me. “Go make some friends”, was my father’s advice. I didn’t find any new friends, but within the hour, I had somehow managed to fall off a high wall, landing on the pavement below on my head, which promptly fractured my skull. This, of course, confirmed my mother’s worse fears. But the struggle continued, and, as it turned out, I did enter kindergarten that next fall. And I did make friends, just like my father suggested.

As a school child, I certainly had issues with “anger management”. Sports were hard for me, and I was always self-conscious about my arm, which hung uselessly at my side. I was the “ground” lookout when the neighborhood kids built a tree fort, because, with one arm, I was never confident climbing trees. Many sports I was terrible at, but I would never concede that fact. For example, I was “unbalanced”, really, so I could only turn in one direction when ice skating. Believe me, if you can only turn in one direction (to the right, it turned out), you don’t make a really great hockey player. Nevertheless, I played hockey all throughout my adolescent years. Special rules were made for me when we played sandlot football. I caught and threw both with my left hand playing baseball, which required me to catch the ball, take off my baseball glove and throw, not the greatest system ever when some kid is running like hell for 3rd base. Tossing the tennis ball for the serve was always tricky for me. With golf, my handicap never got in my way, and I was able to play pretty competitively for years. Likewise, my handicap had no affect on my playing soccer. But I was terrible at basketball, and slowly had to concede that basketball wasn’t going to be my sport. And all though this, my parents kept telling me how lucky I was. Sometimes, I will confess, it was difficult for me to see good fortune in all this.

Through all these trials and tribulations, I was always willing to torture my poor mother with constant whining and complaining. I am sure my mother suffered from “Mother’s Guilt” about my polio. As my mother, it was her job to keep me safe, and if something terrible got through her shields and hurt me, it was somehow her fault. Whining and complaining would almost always land me some kind of treat. And, of course, these “treats” generally helped me in my lifelong battle against being thin.

Yup, whining and complaining and asking why I was paralyzed and other kids were not worked just about every time….until one day, that is. One fateful day, I griped just a tad too much about being handicapped. My mother exploded, and the next day, I was kept out of school and taken to a Long Term Care Facility for polio patients. Most of the patients were kids my age. One or two of them had been in the Polio Ward of the Holyoke Hospital when I was there. All had handicaps so profound as to make any kind of life outside an institution impossible. Many of the kids had no use of any of their arms or legs. Virtually everything had to be done for them. They couldn’t even hold their heads up straight. Many had lost control of their facial muscles and drooled on themselves continuously. And many were confined 24/7 to a breathing device. It absolutely amazed me that they all seemed good natured about their circumstances and happy to be alive at all. That did it. I never complained to my mother again. Mind you I can still feel that old rage brewing up, from time to time. Trying to nail a nail over my head can do it instantly. But that day at the institute for polio patients made me realize that my parent’s constant litany that I was “lucky” was profoundly true. And I learned as well that there are things worse than school.

Alas, my troubles may not be over just yet. As early as 1875, it was noted in the medical literature that some paralytic polio patients can experience new muscle weakness and atrophy many years after the initial infection, often involving parts of the body that escaped paralysis during the initial infection. This secondary paralysis has become known as Post Polio Syndrome (PPS). What could account for this phenomenon? Several theories have been advanced.

Theory 1. Like AIDS, syphilis and other viruses, polio can somehow remain dormant in the body, often times for decades. Then something occurs to activate the virus, and “new” damage is done. This theory has been largely discredited, though scientists cannot rule out the possibility that there is some validity to it.

Theory 2. When polio first struck, nerves were wiped out, resulting in paralysis. However, with intense physical therapy, new nerve tissue, called “Axonal Sprouts” developed, affectively reconnecting the muscles to the brain. The growth of Axonal Sprouts can result in regaining movement and control where it had been lost. The problem is, Axonal Sprouts are not as robust as normal nerves, and they ware out with use over time. As these Axonal Sprouts deteriorate, new paralysis occurs.

Frankly, I’m not too fond of either theory. And these two theories produce very different recommendations as to how to avoid PPS. With theory 1, a person should stay in absolutely the fittest condition possible, exercising vigorously and daily in order to keep the virus dormant. Theory 2, on the other hand, would suggest rest, or in any event, finding ways to take stress off of muscle groups. To make matters worse, current research is troubling. The most conservative estimates indicate that polio survivors have a 25% chance of getting some form of PPS before they die. The most common estimate is that 70% of polio victims will experience PPS. Symptoms of PPS include inordinate fatigue, new muscle weakness, muscle pain, muscle twitching, sleeping difficulties, breathing difficulties, decreased tolerance to cold, joint pain, and in the end, an inability to carry on life’s activities. Of course, now that I know, I am experiencing all of these things all of the time! Actually, to tell the truth, I generally don’t think about PPS at all. There’s nothing I can do about it. It will or it will not occur.

As mentioned earlier, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) contracted paralytic polio in 1929. The actual extent of his handicap was kept from the American people. Basically, his legs were both completely paralyzed. In 1938, FDR helped create the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis. This group started an annual fundraising campaign called “The Mother’s March of Dimes”, which poured money into research to come up with a vaccine. My mother was the Holyoke Coordinator for our local March of Dimes, and I was the “poster-boy”. Pictures of me, in full leg braces (which I didn’t need so never wore) and an arm brace (which I hadn’t used since I was 5) appeared all throughout our area. Nationwide, the March of Dimes raised millions to develop the miracle that everyone yearned for – a vaccine which would prevent polio.

And in 1954, Jonas Salk of South Africa announced the first human trials of such a vaccine. Salk’s vaccine was based on first culturing and then killing wild polio virus, which then had to be injected into the blood (because one’s stomach would destroy the vaccine before it could develop antibodies in one’s system.) Salk himself refused to patent his vaccine; it was his gift to the world. Salk’s vaccine, called Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) had several wonderful features. It could not lead to the recipient’s contracting polio, because the virus was completely dead. Likewise, it could not revert back to “wild” polio virus. But it had a few shortcomings. It did not confer lifetime immunity with one inoculation; some “booster” shots would be required. And most serious from a public health point of view, it had to be injected by a trained (and expensive) healthcare provider.

Research continued. In fact, there were many efforts competing to be the first to discover a vaccine which could be taken orally and would give a person protection for life. The two principle scientists working on this were Dr. Hilary Koprowki and Dr. Albert Sabin, who, like Jonas Salk, were working in Africa. Africa? Why Africa? Because the culturing process, which is the initial phase of any manufacture of a vaccine had to use “primate” tissues (mostly livers), and they have a lot of primates in Africa. Dr. Koprowki was first to announce an oral vaccine, and his vaccine was given to thousands of people in the Belgium Congo between 1957 and 1960. But after a few years, Dr. Koprowki’s vaccine was withdrawn from use. Lately, a journalist named Edward Hooper has made the claim that this “pre-mature” inoculation of thousands of Africans actually introduced AIDS into the human race, because Koprowki’s vaccine was cultivated on chimpanzee livers and was contaminated with SIV, or simian immunodeficiency virus, the immediate precursor to HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). It should be said that Hooper’s theory has many detractors, not the least is Dr. Hilary Koprowki himself. In any event, Dr. Sabin introduced his oral vaccine (OPC) in 1957, and after exhaustive clinical trials and studies, OPC was introduced into world health organizations for general use in 1962, and has become the “gold standard” for polio vaccine.

Because OPC is taken orally, it can be administered by the village dog catcher. Well, ok…. But it doesn’t have to be given as an injection by a licensed nurse. On a global scale, that is a huge difference in cost. And, unlike IPV, it gives one a lifetime protection from polio in one series of treatments. Of course, nothing is simple. OPC is not killed virus, so it can, in the rare case, actually give a child full blown paralytic polio. Talk about unintended consequences. Perhaps even more troubling, on a global scale, OPC can revert back to “wild” polio, making absolute eradication seem theoretically impossible. Hmmmm. Those are some drawbacks alright. Not surprisingly, there is sharp disagreement within the medical and scientific community. Many argue that despite the big differences in cost, only IPV vaccine should be used.

As a result of wide spread immunization in the schools, polio has slowed to a trickle in the "Western" developed countries. The last known case of “wild” polio in the USA was in 1972; the last case of “wild” polio in our hemisphere was in Peru in 1991. Worldwide, however, the statistics are much grimmer. The truth is many poor and developing countries have not been immunizing their children. All throughout the 1980’s, for example, cases of “wild” polio rarely fell below ½ million cases/year.

In 1959, the World Health Organization, an arm of the United Nations, launched a unique and pioneering campaign to literally eradicate the disease smallpox from the planet. Smallpox was a promising target for several reasons. First, the virus that caused smallpox could only live and reproduce in humans. Moreover, a single dose of smallpox vaccine confers lifelong immunity. This campaign was declared a success in 1980, and there have been zero cases of wild virus smallpox since then. With that monumental success in hand, in 1985, the International Rotary Foundation announced Polio Plus, a global initiative aimed at nothing less than the complete eradication of the polio virus from the earth. In 1988, Rotary International was joined by the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a world wide effort called the “Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Since that time, hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised, and hundreds of millions of inoculations have been administered around the world. The original goal was to wipe out wild polio completely by 2005.

The initial philosophy was simple to understand: every child in the world was to receive the full course of inoculations needed to confer life time immunity. Like smallpox, the polio virus can only survive in human hosts. If every single person in the world was inoculated, the virus would have nowhere to hide. In practice, the Initiative employed four key elements:
a. Routinely immunize every child in the world four times during the first year of life.
And the children were to be immunized for 6 major childhood diseases along side
immunization from polio.
b. Establish National Immunization Days (NID’s) in key countries where wild polio still
exists.
c. Establish a worldwide surveillance system so that no case of wild polio would go
unreported.
d. In the end, deploy house to house teams that would fan out around the globe to pick
up any children missed by the NID’s. Thousands of Rotarians throughout the world have
dropped out of their day jobs and volunteered to travel into the world’s politically most
dangerous places to personally administer the vaccine to children overlooked by the
NID’s.

By 2001, over a half a billion children were immunized in 94 countries. All in all, some 2 billion doses have been administered. As a result, the number of “polio endemic” countries fell from 20 to 10 and the geographical area of infections within these “endemic” countries has been sharply reduced. But political struggles and local wars have complicated these efforts. Not surprisingly, the “high intensity transmission areas where 85% of reported cases occur include Northern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Anyone interested in hopping over to Afghanistan to administer polio vaccine to little children? Low intensity transmission areas which account for 15% of reported cases are in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Angola and Egypt. But even here, the numbers are small. Type 2 wild polio virus has not been recorded anywhere in the world since 1999, and type 3 has been isolated only in India, Pakistan, Somalia and Nigeria. There are still countries at risk. Congo, Chad, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Madagascar and Mozambique have reported no actual cases BUT have low immunization rates and poor public sanitation. Overall, the numbers of reported cases (and reporting has greatly improved) has dropped like a stone. Worldwide, in 1988 (just as Rotary was kicking off its Polio Plus program), there were an estimated 500,000 cases. In 1999, that number had dropped to less than 20,000; in 2001, less than 500 confirmed transmissions were reported.

Absolute worldwide eradication continues to be an allusive goal. There are many factors, including the ironic fact that the OPV vaccine can actually induce cases of polio and can revert back to “wild” polio. But by any standard, Polio Plus has been a global success story on a grand scale. Think of it. Down to only a few hundred cases per year from 500,000 worldwide before Rotary International kicked off their Polio Plus program! That is a whole lot of little arms and legs and chests that will not be rendered useless by this terrible disease! Every Rotarian throughout the world should be proud of this incredible result.

Dr. Arthur Lyman Kinney

Dr. Kinney at the marriage of his daughter, Transcript Telegram, 1951





When I was a young lad, I outgrew my pediatrician, and my parents began taking me to Dr. Arthur Lyman Kinney, an older doctor who was, at that time, actually about to retire from practice altogether. Dr. Kinney had practiced in Holyoke virtually all his adult life. He was a memorable doctor. How can you forget a doctor who asked you to say "ah" while a cigar sat smoldering at its station on the table next to you? For years, Dr. Kinney held forth in his office in town in Holyoke, MA, but in his later years, Dr. Kinney saw his patients at his home office.

And I remember Dr. Kinney's home office. It was a small but airy and light room with a pleasant view of the Connecticut River. It had a beautiful oriental rug and a fine leather topped desk. However, Dr.Kinney's office was not overly dominated by medical equipment. In fact, except for a small white table containing his tongue depressors, stethoscope, Q-tips, and eye, nose and ear thingie, Dr. Kinney's office was simply a pleasant study, suitable for a professor of Chaucer, or mediaeval tapestries or something. In fact, medicine vied for space with Dr. Kinney's "other passion" - stamp collecting. A table facing the window invariably contained stamp books, tongs, hinges, magnifying glasses, reference books - all telltale signs of a fanatic philatelist.

Over the years, Dr. Kinney obviously became philosophical about medicine. In one incident, my father went to Dr. Kinney with a bad cold. After an examination, Dr. Kinney said, "Frank" he said, "you have a bad cold, and it's a good thing you came to me. Under my care, you'll be over this thing in 2 weeks, whereas, if you'd gone to one of those younger doctors, it would have taken you a fortnight to recover".

Indeed, by today's standards, Dr. Kinney may well have been more of a philosopher than a physician. I am sure that Dr. Kinney would have been more than a tad uneasy in today's world of medicine. Cat scans, complex hip replacements, laser surgery, fiber optics and interferon drugs were not rummaging around in Dr. Kinney's little black bag, worn smooth and cracked red at the hinges. I am convinced that with today's techniques and advancements, if you are ill or injured, today's doctors can run rings around anything Dr.Kinney could do for you. So why do I long for the days of Dr. Kinney?

Well, in part, it has to do with the suffering of uncertainty. When you went to Dr. Kinney, he told you what was wrong with you and what to do about it: either you got better or you didn't. One way or another, you had done your part. You had gone to the best around, and it was in Dr.Kinney's hands - or the Lord's.

Today, medical knowledge is so complex, so fractured, with such an onslaught of research, knowledge, new techniques, new treatments, that doctors are understandably hesitant to pronounce absolute, definitive diagnosis and prognosis. And in a time of unbelievable malpractice suits, this hesitancy is simply enhanced to a complete unwillingness to be specific, to be the final word, to take the responsibility - "this is what you have-period". I maintain that this situation leads to a further dimension of suffering: not only do you have what you have, but you are always left with the feeling that you could be doing more to get well. With Dr. Kinney, he told you what was what, whether he actually knew or not. He never inflicted on his patients the further pain of uncertainty.

Another "cost" of the modern world of medical specialization is the inevitable de-personalization. Patients went to Dr. Kinney for everything; he got to know the "whole you", knew everything about you. You knew you were a real person to Dr. Kinney, and after the exam, the talk, the shot of penicillin, you might even get a peek at his one cent un-cancelled Washington. Today, as you are passed from one doctor to another, this sense of being fully understood as a person as well as a body has diminished. Doctors I know may bristle at this, but I believe it is so.

Let me illustrate my point. An acquaintance of mine had to go to the hospital for complete “lower GI exams”. Awaiting the results, she feared the worst: she could be told that she had colitis or even cancer. As it turned out, the news was good, but came in the form of a form which stated:

"Colon --- Unremarkable".

Her feelings were hurt! Older folks who had doctors like Dr. Kinney will understand my point. I simply cannot envision Dr. Kinney, stripping off his examining gloves, turning with that craggy smile, one eye closed, and saying,

"Yes, my dear - thoroughly unremarkable."

Indeed !!

Dr. Kinney knew how to treat his patients - and he knew how to treat a lady.

Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner

Photo of Allen Welsh Dulles, Director of the C.I.A. from 1953–1961.




I strongly believe that every American should read a book entitled “Legacy of Ashes” by Pulitzer Prize winner, Tim Weiner. Want to know why? The following is a brief outline of the covert operations of the CIA during the decade 1953-1963 as distilled from that book. I present this little outline here just as an appetizer.

1. 1953. US, with British help, unseated the duly elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadeq and installed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi as the “Shah” of Iran. The Shah was a virtual dictator and “our guy” in the middle east for 30 years. He ruled Iran through the SAVAK, a brutal secret police trained by the CIA.

2. 1954. “Operation Success”. US virtually created a military coup to oust President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala and installed Carlos Castillo Armas. The coup was originally very weak, requiring actual direct bombing by the US to succeed. It led to forty years of military rulers, death squads and armed repression.

3. 1954. Japan. Despite the fact that Nobusuke Kishi was a war criminal who has signed the declaration of war against the US, the CIA “rescued” him from prison and installed him as Prime Minister (1957) and chief of the ruling party that held power in Japan for nearly half a century, through continuous CIA payoffs that the Japanese called “kozo oshoku”, or “structural corruption”.

4. 1953. USA puts Gamal Abdel Nasser in power in Egypt in a military coup bankrolled by the USA. But Nasser proved unwilling to take orders from the US. In 1956, Nasser went so far as to nationalize the Suez Canal.

5. During the Eisenhower years, the CIA delivered guns, money and intelligence to King Saud of Saudi Arabia, King Hussein of Jordan, President Camille Chamoun of Lebanon and President Nuri Said of Iraq, successfully placing them in power.“Our guy” in Iraq, Nuri Said was overthrown by his military led by General Abdel Karim Quasim who went public with proof of CIA control of his country. We responded by backing a successful coup in Iraq and installed the ruling Baath Party under Ali Saleh Saadi. Eventually, we supported the take over of the Baath party by a young assassin named Saddam Hussein.

6. We supported the independence of Indonesia from the Dutch and helped President Sukarno take office; that is, until it was discovered that Indonesia had some 20 billion barrels of untapped oil. Sukarno by this time wanted to be “unaligned”, tied neither to the USA or the Soviets. In fact, Sukarno called a conference in of 29 Asian, African and Arab leaders to Indonesia and proposed a global movement of unaligned nations. This set off a 10 year “war” to unseat him, which, of course, forced him closer to Moscow. And the war proved difficult, as most of the senior officers in the Indonesian armed forces were trained in the US. And were loyal to Sukarno. Despite bombings and naval operations, Sukarno defeated all rebel and American forces sent against him. Years later, the CIA supported General Suharto who led an insurrection which killed some 500,000 people, according to Marshal Green, the American ambassador. Whole villages were “depopulated”. Green was to later lie before a Congressional committee and stated that the CIA had nothing to do with the uprising. In the coming years, the military junta jailed more than one million people.

7. On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, defeating the hopelessly corrupt dictator, Betista with substantial help from the CIA. In fact, in April – May that same year, Castro came to America for meetings with the CIA in Washington. But Castro proved difficult to control, so American policy quickly changed to “eliminating” him; this included an embargo which has almost starved the people of Cuba to death, the failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs and various efforts to assassinate him, including a Mafia contract put out by the CIA’s Dick Bissell. He has just now relinquished power to his brother due to poor health, remaining alive and in power for almost 50 years, despite all efforts of the USA to kill him or otherwise remove him from power.

8. 1960. Patrice Lumumba was freely elected after the Congo expelled the Belgians, who had brutally ruled the Congo as a colony. When the Belgian paratroopers returned to reassert Belgium rule, Lumumba appealed to the US for help. This was denied, so Lumumba turned to Moscow for help. Thus, the CIA set out to kill him and replace him with “our man”, Joseph Mobutu. After a 5 year struggle, Mobutu came to power with the unwavering support of the CIA. He ruled for three decades as a brutal and corrupt dictator, stealing billions of dollars from his nation’s deposits of diamonds, minerals and slaughtering thousands to preserve his power. For that entire time, he was our “go to guy” in Africa, enjoying continuous American support.

9. The US brought Generalissimo Rafeal Trujillo to power in the Dominican Republic where he ruled for 30 years. He ruled by “force, fraud and fear, taking pleasure in hanging his enemies from meat hooks”. But he kept law and order, got the trains to run on time, etc. He was our kind of guy. Finally, under Kennedy, Trujillo became too much of an embarrassment, so the CIA had him killed. Chaos ensued as rioting in the streets of the capital broke out. The CIA claimed that the rioters were actually Cuban agents, and on that pretext, President Johnson sent in thousands of marines.

10. 1962; The American government spent millions of dollars to push Joao Goulart from power in Brazil and replace him with a military junta.

11. With American military and financial aid, Francois “Papa Doc” Dubalier came to power in Haiti. Papa Doc was a fanatically corrupt and violent dictator, a real mad man who ruled Haiti for years.

12. In 1953, Cheddi Jagan became the prime minister of British Guiana under the British colonial constitution. He was twice re-elected, visiting the oval office to meet with Kennedy in 1961. Almost immediately after that meeting, the CIA opened a covert operation to drive Jagan from power. It was know that he had a Marxist wife from Chicago (Jagan himself was an American educated dentist), and that was enough despite Jagan’s pledge that he was not going to hand Guyana to the Russians. At the time that this covert operation was started, Kennedy approved covert operations to overthrow the governments of Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Pakistan, Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala and Venezuela. So much for Camelot!

13. In 1962, under Kennedy’s orders, the CIA’s Lucien Conein led an assassination effort that killed President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam. Diem was a Christian in a largely Buddhist country. We had put Diem in power and kept him there with millions of dollars. This, like our taking out Saddam Husain, let loose chaos in South Vietnam, which ultimately led to full out war, costing American thousands of lives and handing the USA it’ first ever military defeat.

14. In response to the North Vietnamese cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos, the CIA brought suitcases of cash to bear, which forced out the freely elected coalition government and installed Prince Souvanna Phouma, whose CIA case officer was a young Yale graduate named Campbell James who saw himself as the viceroy in Laos. The CIA poured millions more into arming commando forces called The Hmong commanded by a mountain tribesman named Vang Pao and overtly attempted to start a hot war in Loas.

15. In Thailand, the US overturned the local government and established a military/police state. The head of the national police, supported by the CIA, was “an opium king”, and the military commander controlled Bangkok’s whorehouses. Thailand remained under military dictatorship for more than a decade, ruled under martial law. Even after elections were called, the CIA dumped many millions of dollars more to fix the elections and keep the same junta in power.

This is just a ten year period in the history of the CIA. Weiner’s book goes on to describe just this sort of activity up to the present. Like I said. I think every American should read this book.